Last week I took a week off from work, studies and Steemit. This was actually my first "proper" vacation in 6 months, and needless to say it was a much needed one.

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I'm terrible at taking time off, but what I'm even worse at is to relax when I am actually taking that time off.

In my experience, for the majority of people venturing along the path of extreme self-development this a common curse bestowed upon many high-achievers.

I'm sure many of you reading this can relate.

I have been struggling with the art of relaxation in recent years and although I have improved, I still have miles to walk. Oh funny, see what I did there? In the last sentence I implied that I had "miles to walk", which in itself affirms that I consider myself not being there already, and having to "walk" somewhere in order to relax.

Like many things in life I recon that relaxing is something fleeting, thus trying to hard to attain it will more likely escape from your hands like little grains of sand.

Lucky enough I have a girlfriend (@sandrastarud) who in many aspects know me better than I know myself. So after a few arduous days at the beginning of my vacation she gave me some profound thoughts and advice, this in turn allowed me to let go of my attempts to be semi-productive and to simply relax in the moment, dropping all internal demands I put on myself and allowing myself to recharge my batteries.

Although this is a highly individual matter I thought it could be interesting to share my approach, resulting in that I can honestly say that I now once again can feel my internal energy and motivation surging. My approach can be summarized in one sentence. I followed the:

The principle of least resistance

You read it, the exact opposite of what I do in my regular schedule.

I went to sleep whenever I wanted to (usually 2-3 A.M), played video games for 5-6 hours a day, ate sugar, trained twice a day (running, climbing, gym), and slept during both days and nights (10-12 hours).

I simply let myself go, dropped everything related to hustle and indulged in whatever I wanted to. A controlled experiment with quite amazing results (read once again; probably highly individual).

Anyways, thought this would be an interesting event to share. Let me know if you have experienced the struggles of taking time off and if you have any tips of your own to regain that energy 🙏🏼

The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck

During my running sessions last week I listened to an audiobook, The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck authored by Mark Manson. I must say I was pleasantly surprised of the quality of the book so I'd like to share some profound wisdom for you to incorporate in your life.

The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.

We live in a society of material abundance. Opportunities and material goods are limitless, resulting in that we don't know what to give a fuck about anymore. Due to the infinite amount of things we can see or know there is also an infinite number of ways to discover that we don't measure up, that we're not good enough, that things aren't as great as they could be (hello social media).

You are going to die someday. Everyone you know is going to die soon. And in your short life you only have a certain amount of fucks to give, what we need to do is to learn what is worth giving a fuck upon, aligning our fucks with our personal values and not to give a fuck about the rest.

I think what most people — especially educated, pampered middle-class white people — consider “life problems” are really just side effects of not having anything more important to worry about.

Finding something important and meaningful in your life is the most productive use of your time and energy. This is a truism due to every life has problems associated with it, thus finding meaning in your life will help you sustain the effort needed to overcome the problems you face.

It’s okay for things to suck some of the time.

Problems never stop. They merely get exchanged or upgraded. Happiness is found in solving problems, not avoiding them. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving. Happiness is wanting the problems you have and wanting to solve them.

The world of social media is a curse in many ways, but one of the largest negative effects emanating from it is that it's not ok for things to suck, that it's not ok to feel negative emotions or have anxiety.

Manson writes:

Our lives today are filled with information from the extremes of the bell curve of human experience. The best of the best, worst of the worst, and most upsetting of the upsetting. We only see the most exceptional news stories because that’s what drives revenue. This is a real problem when it comes to comparison because you can only be exceptional in one thing thing and you’re going to be below average in nearly everything else. That makes comparison a very dangerous game to play.

The problem is that the pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up a lot of people’s expectations for themselves.

We need to choose our own values and metrics in life, playing the comparison game is merely path to extreme unhappiness.

Magic Bullet of the Day

Once again todays post got quite long, thus I will round of with a quote by the philosopher Alan Watts:

To desire a positive experience, is a negative experience. To accept a negative experience, is a positive experience.

Previous posts

Better You #3 : Investing $1000 in Steem. Inside suffering is the seed of change.
Better You #2 : Hacks to improve your sleep and practical tips & thoughts to enhance your life
Better You #1 : A new Steemit project to help us all become the best version of ourselves